Aftermath
by Soul Reaver
Summary: This story takes place after the events of What You Leave Behind, it involves a crossover with Voyager and three original characters of my creation.
1. New Additions

New Additions  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Voyager in any way. However the two characters, Lieutenants Rusty Puckett and Diane Schonke are my creation. This takes place after the episode, "What You Leave Behind." Starfleet Special Forces were my idea, however. Any discrepancies are due to the fact that I haven't watched Voyager in years.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Colonel Kira Nerys had just briefed the new security officer, Lieutenant Rusty Puckett, Starfleet Special Forces, about Promenade security procedures. She wondered what a member of unit that Starfleet claimed did not exist, but had carried out numerous dangerous behind the lines raids against Cardassian and Dominion targets would be doing as a lowly security officer on a space station. But from what she read of the officer sitting at his desk, he seemed to be a fairly capable fellow. His black eyes seemed to radiate a strange blend of confidence and mystery.  
  
"Morning ma'am." The officer said curtly, "Lieutenant Rusty Puckett, I'm replacing Constable Odo."  
  
"Yes I've heard, lieutenant." Kira replied, this fellow was slightly mysterious, guarded even. His service record, the declassified part that Starfleet trusted an allied officer with, was certainly eventful. Graduated in the middle of his class at the Academy, graduated and became security officer aboard the USS Agamemnon, joined Starfleet Special Forces when the Agamemnon was badly damaged in the Badlands by the Maquis and as soon as he joined the 14th Special Forces Group, D Squadron, they were thrown into battle against the Cardassian/Dominion forces.  
  
"The USS Voyager should be docking any moment, ma'am." Puckett began, subconsciously tapping a small, ridged scar running parallel to his jawline.  
  
"I'd personally like to meet the new personnel being transferred to our station. Lieutenant Harry Kim, Lieutenants Tom and B'Elanna Paris, Lieutenant Diane Schonke..." Kira began. At the mention of the fourth name, Kira noticed Puckett visibly perk up. She was to be their new operations officer, working with Senior Chief Hatcher, newly transferred from the USS Marseille. She read the woman's service record as well as the other three. Then there was the Cardassian, Glinn Pakar, the Cardassian Self Defense Force liaison officer.  
  
'I've got a veritable rogues gallery on my hands,' Kira thought, 'A Cardassian officer, two former Maquis, a Starfleet officer who's turned his life around, and a standard issue 'nerd' as Earth slang put it. Benjamin, you were right about command, it's not all its cracked up to be.'  
  
Kira watched as Pakar joined them, he was a broad shouldered Cardassian, about three centimeters shorter than Puckett, not as tall and thin as much of his race. Kira noted with some amusement that Puckett often referred to him as 'Half Pint' a name Pakar detested. She could see after six days the two weren't going to get along in the least. 'I need another raktajino.' Kira mentally groaned.  
  
"Morning Half Pint." Puckett replied.  
  
"Good morning, lieutenant." The Cardassian replied stiffly. His entire family had been killed by the Dominon and he had lost two brothers to the Federation during the Dominion War.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Captain Kathryn Janeway pinned the second pip on the red material of the collar of the young woman standing before her. "Congratulations, Diane Schonke, I officially promote you to the rank of Lieutenant."  
  
The former Maquis, a slim, athletically figured woman with short brown hair and rich brown eyes stood before her, with a shy smile, "Interestingly enough, I never thought that leaving the Academy to fight for the Maquis would result in this."  
  
"You redeemed yourself over the past seven years, Diane. And this promotion and your service record proves it." Janeway said.  
  
B'Elanna Torres punched her colleague lightly on the arm, "Congratulations Diane."  
  
"Thanks B'Elanna. I mean, Mrs. Paris." Diane replied.  
  
"I like the sound of that." Tom began, when B'Elanna elbowed him in the ribs.  
  
"And I like the sound of Tom Torres better, unless you'd like the sight of an angry, half-Klingon..." B'Elanna began.  
  
Harry Kim joined them, "DS9, the place we heard so much about after we had contact with the Alpha Quadrant, and now we get posted there. Amazing."  
  
"Congratulations Harry." Diane remarked, "Lieutenant Kim, I like the sound of that."  
  
"Well don't get too friendly, that would be fraternizing with a senior officer." Harry began.  
  
"Fraternization?" Diane said, with a mock hurt expression, "We're of equal rank."  
  
"I'm senior to you." Harry began.  
  
"By five minutes." Diane replied.  
  
"I'm still senior." Harry joked.  
  
Captain Janeway joined them as they walked into the Docking Ring. Chakotay, Paris, B'Elanna, Kim and Schonke fell into step behind her. They stopped in front of an auburn haired Bajoran woman flanked by a Cardassian and a Starfleet officer, a human that Lieutenant Schonke's eyes instantly flashed with recognition for. He was a lean, compact fellow with close cropped black hair, with small black eyes that seemed to scan everything in the room.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Rusty Puckett felt his guard go down when he saw her. Seeing her in that uniform, the black jumpsuit softened by the band of gray, with the red color of command underneath it, wearing the rank of lieutenant was a change. Other than that, she was still the same, her hair cut short above her shoulders, her eyes still that beautiful light brown shade, her skin still retaining that suntanned complexion. It was almost as if his memory had gone back eight years, to when he was twenty-two again.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Eight years earlier: "Rusty, I'm sorry I have to do this..." Diane began as she fired the phaser.  
  
It was a good thing the weapon was on stun, otherwise the promising career of one Ensign Rusty Puckett would have ended right there, in the shattered hulk of a seemingly abandoned Cardassian freighter...  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Do you know each other Lieutenant?" Kira asked.  
  
"Yes ma'am." Rusty replied.  
  
"Lieutenant, do you know this man?" Janeway asked.  
  
"Yes ma'am." Diane replied.  
  
"Hello Rusty, it's been a long time." Diane said, her calm façade hiding the emotions within.  
  
"Eight years, five months, and seventeen days." Rusty replied.  
  
"I can see you two know each other." Pakar dropped with a dapper grin.  
  
"We do." Puckett began, rather abruptly.  
  
Kira could see that things had gotten interesting. Her security and ops officers apparently had some sort of history together. And from what she knew about Voyager, she was wearing the lieutenant's rank insignia for Maquis officers on Voyager. Janeway had written nothing but good things about the two ex-Maquis officers, Torres and Schonke during their time in the Delta Quadrant.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Great, sent to a backwater outpost, given a crappy job, and an encounter with a woman I've never been able to get out of my head for over eight years." Puckett growled, "What more could go wrong...."  
  
"And speak of the devil." Puckett growled, not even turning around.  
  
Sitting in the Replimat with a cup of coffee, with milk, six lumps of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon, he sipped at it. "Damn replicators can't get these things right. How've you been over the last eight years Diane?"  
  
"How'd you know it was me?" Diane asked.  
  
Rusty swiveled about, looking right at her, "When you know someone for a long time you recognize them anywhere. The distinctive tread of your footsteps gave you away."  
  
"I've been fine, since we've been aboard Voyager I've survived the Borg, aliens that steal organs, called Vidiians, and even Q." Diane began.  
  
"Sounds interesting." Rusty began.  
  
"So how has it been since..." Diane began, before realizing she had gone up the wrong alley with Rusty just then. She could see she had hurt him, the stun beam he recovered from, the fact that he was fighting against his former best friend wasn't so easy to recover.  
  
"Look, Rusty, things have changed." Diane began, awkwardly.  
  
"I can see." Rusty began, noticing Diane's Starfleet uniform, something she had abandoned years earlier to fight for the Maquis.  
  
"Do you still...." Diane began.  
  
"...Remember? Yes I do. I've thought about it every day for the past eight year." Rusty replied.  
  
"I had no other choice Rusty?" Diane replied, Rusty could see tears starting to form in her eyes. For all his toughness, the battle hardened soldier knew to pull back.  
  
"I suppose you didn't. I mean you'd already hurt your family by resigning from the Academy, joining a rogue organization, and then risking imprisonment." Rusty replied.  
  
"My friends wanted me to kill you. You got too close to us." Diane replied.  
  
"Thanks for leaving me alive." Rusty replied dourly.  
  
"What happened when I was reported dead?" Diane replied.  
  
"I felt like some part of me had died." Rusty began, with no change in his expression, but looking into his eyes, Diane could see years of pain etched into them.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Eight years earlier: The USS Agamemnon, a Norway class starship, glided through space and sitting in the Lounge was a young ensign named Rusty Puckett sat alone at a table. The news on the PADD before him was devastating. He knew no one on the USS Voyager, but from the crew compliment of the Maquis raider that an unknown source sent to Voyager and her backup vessel, the Agamemnon, he knew that Diane had been lost in the same Badlands.  
  
Diane, his closest friend at the Academy, his unrequited crush for most of the years they'd known one another. Gone. Those four letters summed up more emotion than he cared to realize.  
  
"Remember son, a Starfleet Officer doesn't lose emotional control." Rusty replied, "Thank you Master Chief Puckett."  
  
Rusty was referring to Master Chief Manfred James Puckett, his father and a veteran of many years in Starfleet and the Cardassian War. The man was a good father, a skilled warrior, and a wise mentor. He wouldn't want Rusty to pine over the woman that had died in the Badlands, but emotionally he couldn't help it. He loved Diane for over four years, unrequited, but she saw him only as a good friend. She had left after her boyfriend had been killed in an accidental attack on his homeworld by the Cardassians. She'd joined the Maquis three weeks later.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"So you didn't hate me for turning on the Federation?" Diane asked.  
  
"I hated what you did. But I didn't hate you personally. I knew you were fighting for a cause you believe in. But it was still wrong. I can't count the number of times that I worried over every Starfleet intelligence report about Maquis casualties or whenever I targeted Maquis raiders." Rusty replied.  
  
"Rusty, I want things to start from before all this happened." Diane replied.  
  
"I do too, but it's not that easy." Rusty replied, "Too many years have passed."  
  
"Rusty I really thought you valued our friendship more than that." Diane protested.  
  
"I do. I can't forget what you did. But I can forgive." Rusty began.  
  
Diane walked up to his chair and wrapped her arms around him. Rusty returned the hug, "It's good to have you back."  
  
"It's good to be back." Diane replied, "Well I've got my family to talk to."  
  
"What is the relationship between yourself and Lieutenant Schonke?" Pakar asked.  
  
"Why is that your business?" Puckett said, turning on him.  
  
"She's a close friend of mine." Rusty replied.  
  
"It seems like you feel more towards her." Pakar observed.  
  
"Why is it your business, Cardie!" Rusty replied and turned on his heel out of the Replimat.  
  
Actually Pakar knew more about Puckett than Puckett realized. He had read the debriefing about the interrogation of five members of a Starfleet Special Forces unit they had captured trying to blow up a ketracel white facility. The use of the experimental memory extraction unit had worked to an extent. Two prisoners went insane and committed suicide. The other three survived. Two of them were medically discharged to a mental hospital on Regara Prime, this one, Puckett, survived and remained in Starfleet. Notes on the woman he was speaking to earlier appeared in the briefing.  
  
"I saved your life, Lieutenant." Pakar said to Rusty's back.  
  
"I saved my own life Half Pint." Puckett replied coldly.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
This was just to introduce the new characters, the Voyager/DS9 characters will play a more prominent role in later chapters. Please R&R. And soon to appear Vic Fontaine and more of DS9 staff. I'm building this story around Rusty, Diane, and Pakar largely. 


	2. Meetings in the Wardroom

Meetings in the Wardroom  
  
Disclaimer: Same as before.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
At 1800 Colonel Kira's planned reception in the Wardroom for the new additions to the senior staff commenced. As usual Quark had gone all out, with a generous profit margin expected, with the preparations. Voyager's senior staff as well as Deep Space Nine's senior staff were mingling with one another.  
  
Kira looked at the new faces replacing Worf, Odo, and Chief O'Brien. There was Lieutenant Tom Paris, being groomed to be third in command. Then his wife, Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, the new chief engineer, the enigmatic half Klingon. Glinn Pakar, the Cardassian liaison officer, a diplomatic post assigned to DS9 after the Dominion War, he was being groomed for second in command. However, Lieutenant Diane Schonke, the operations officer, was another likely candidate. Then there was the enigma of a security/tactical officer, Lieutenant Rusty Puckett. Using a habit she learned from Odo, and her own learned diplomatic abilities from the past seven years, Kira observed and mingled among the speaking groups...  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"So remember that day at the Academy when you set fire to the chemistry lab?" Diane asked.  
  
"That was entirely by accident." Rusty replied, "I was accident prone in those days."  
  
"You still are sometimes." Diane replied, "Remember when...."  
  
"For the last time, the incident with the Vulcan ambassador was not my doing." Rusty replied.  
  
"I suppose you purposely dumped about four liters of water over the head of the Vulcan ambassador when we were cadets." Diane replied, "Sometimes you are the goofiest person I've ever known."  
  
"You wound me fair lady." Rusty joked, holding his hands to his heart.  
  
"Enjoying your evening?" Kira asked.  
  
"Yes ma'am." Diane replied, "Lieutenant Diane Schonke."  
  
"Colonel Kira Nerys, Bajoran militia. Your records from Captain Janeway indicate you have a background in operations as well as command. She seems to think rather highly of you." Kira began.  
  
"Really ma'am?" Diane asked.  
  
"She once said that you're on the fast track to command, if you so choose to stay." Kira said, "That was on your latest fitness evaluation."  
  
Facing Puckett she said, "Lieutenant, you know each other?"  
  
"Yes ma'am, we were classmates at Starfleet Academy." Rusty replied.  
  
"I'll let you two catch up on old times." Kira said, "Enjoy your evening."  
  
"Yes ma'am." Both of them replied.  
  
"It's amazing isn't it?" Rusty said, "I never thought I'd ever see you in that uniform. But knowing you, you've earned it."  
  
"What about you. I'd be thinking you'd be going for command of a company by now or be getting screened for battalion executive officer." Diane replied, referring to Rusty's choice of occupation with Starfleet ground forces and security.  
  
"He likes her, it's obvious he likes her." Ezri said, as she watched the two new lieutenants talk.  
  
"Oh, you mean our new security officer." Bashir replied, "And our new operations officer."  
  
"Which, by the way, Julian is my new room mate." Ezri replied, she and Bashir deciding to take the relationship slow by not moving in together just yet. So Ezri now shared quarters with Diane Schonke.  
  
"How can you tell?" Julian asked.  
  
"Do you see how Lieutenant Puckett rarely smiles unless he's around her?" Ezri replied.  
  
"Actually he does have a sense of humor, a grim cynical one, but it's there." Bashir replied.  
  
"He obviously has some past issues." Ezri replied.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
B'Elanna snagged Diane as she walked to the serving table to help herself to another drink. "How long have you known Puckett?" B'Elanna asked.  
  
"Since we were at the Academy." Diane replied, "He was one of my closest friends there. And the only one so far that's even talked to me since I've been back in the Alpha Quadrant."  
  
"So are you sure it's not too imposing that you babysit Miral tomorrow night? Tom and I can always change our plans." B'Elanna replied.  
  
"No not at all." Diane replied, "Who's watching her tonight?"  
  
"Commander Chakotay." B'Elanna replied.  
  
"Did you guys ever date at the Academy?" Tom asked Diane.  
  
B'Elanna elbowed her husband lightly, for a half-Klingon, and Tom gasped. "No, we never did, but we were really good friends." Diane replied.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Rusty watched Diane as she talked to Paris and Torres. He smiled to himself and suddenly felt self conscious. Seven years had passed since they'd last seen each other, and he was starting to feel old feelings reawaken again.  
  
"What is it about this woman?" he muttered to himself.  
  
"You knew each other for a long time." A voice sounded. Rusty spun around and saw a slight, slim Trill woman about five centimeters shorter than him standing there.  
  
"Counselor Dax? Right?" Rusty said.  
  
"Right. You must be Rusty Puckett?" Ezri said, "I'm sorry, I just overheard you speak and..."  
  
"It's alright." Rusty said, "Funny, no matter how badly my heart was broken, I still have feelings..."  
  
"She really must be special to you." Ezri said.  
  
"Special enough to cause me to nearly fail Warp Field Mechanics my sophomore year at the Academy because I was moping over the fact that she had a boyfriend already." Rusty replied, "Let's just say I spent a lot of time on the punching bags to vent out my grief."  
  
"Coach Spitz still has that punching bag you accidentally tore apart your sophomore year." Ezri replied.  
  
"He told you about that." Diane said, entering the conversation. Lightly punching Rusty on the arm she said, "He's a fairly well known character in our class."  
  
"Apparently." Ezri replied, "Coach Spitz still teaches self defense at the Academy."  
  
"Oh dear God." Rusty replied, "Four years at the Academy and another seven with Starfleet Security/Special Forces and I still can't beat that man in hand to hand."  
  
"Oh yeah, last subspace transmission when we on Voyager, you told me about how Coach threw you on your back so hard you were seeing stars." Diane replied.  
  
"Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age." Rusty replied.  
  
"Rusty, you're thirty years old!" Diane protested.  
  
"Yeah, and I've got more shoulder problems than Chief O'Brien." Rusty replied, with a toothy grin.  
  
"I'm surprised you still have teeth." Diane joked, "After you got hit so many times in boxing."  
  
"Hey, you weren't the one challenged to a fight by Mackenzie Calhoun." Rusty replied, "On my family honor I couldn't turn it down."  
  
"You boxed Mackenzie Calhoun?" Ezri said, "So you're the famous Cadet Counterpunch."  
  
"He was a guest instructor for our hand to hand combat class our sophomore year, and he asked if anyone would be interested in sparring him for six rounds of three minutes in Earth boxing. Rusty's hand was the first one up." Diane replied.  
  
"You volunteered to have a former Xenexian freedom fighter beat you senseless?" Ezri asked, incredulously.  
  
Rusty rolled his eyes and said, "I was twenty years old back then, I didn't know any better."  
  
"I distinctly remember hearing the melody to quite a few funeral dirges heard when you went into the ring." Diane replied, "Rusty had a concussion for days afterward, but Calhoun came out of there with bruised ribs and a sore stomach. When they shook hands after the match, Rusty couldn't walk in a straight line."  
  
"I wasn't that bad!" Rusty protested.  
  
"Bull." Diane replied, "I remember leading you by the right arm all the way to Sickbay and you insisting, 'Let go of me, I can walk!' all the way over there."  
  
"You're about the only person who remembers that incident." Rusty observed.  
  
"No, I remember about half our old study group remembers you walking into my room with an ice pack over your right eye." Diane countered, "And you almost got our debate team into some serious trouble."  
  
"How?" Rusty replied, defensively, "Oh no! The Crusader Catastrophe was NOT my fault! Don't blame the entire thing on me."  
  
"Oh really." Diane replied, "Who's idea was it to construct a holosuite program for our History of Conflict class?"  
  
"You said it was a great idea." Rusty protested.  
  
"Yeah, that was before you gave half the class a heart attack with that swarm of onrushing Muslim marauders that appeared at the start of the program!" Diane replied, "And then the one hundred armored charging knights that almost trampled the class."  
  
"OK, so I went slightly overboard with writing the program. We still got an A." Rusty replied.  
  
"That was because you almost gave old Professor Simmons a serious heart attack." Diane replied, "And then there was that belly dancer in Saladin's court that looked suspiciously like me."  
  
"That was Vasquez's idea of a joke!" Rusty replied, "That part can't be blamed on me."  
  
"I know you didn't make that part of the program, but I'd rather blame you right now. After all I am heaping the blame for the Crusader Catastrophe solely on you." Diane replied, "Though it was fun to see your jaw drop open when you saw it. And the most conservative professor on campus nearly fainted when he saw it."  
  
'I damn near fainted when I saw that dancer.' Rusty thought, then said, "Still, Vasquez was the moron that put the belly dancer in. Though I got him back when he decided to make a copy of the program for his own use."  
  
"Really, pray tell." Diane replied.  
  
"I removed your face and put the balding Professor Simmons' head atop the body." Rusty replied, grinning.  
  
"Rusty." Diane laughed, "I always knew you'd pull something like that. Are you still on that coffee addiction?"  
  
"No, remember our sophomore year I gave it up as a New Year's resolution." Rusty replied.  
  
"I never thought you'd carry it through, honestly. I remember you practically had a coffee cup surgically attached to your right hand at all times." Diane replied.  
  
"You inspired me to do it. I distinctly remember at Catholic services on Sundays you'd say that I never needed coffee." Rusty replied.  
  
"To which you replied, I do so need it." Diane replied.  
  
"What can I say, I purr like a kitten to the wiles of a beautiful woman." Rusty said. 'Oh God did I just say that aloud.'  
  
'Oh God did he just say that aloud?' Diane thought, and then blushed as she replied, "Rusty, you always did have a way with words."  
  
"I did graduate with a degree in Galactic Literature from the Academy." Rusty replied.  
  
"You took a bunch of courses more suitable to Diplomatic Corps officers and chose Security as your main service. I just find that ironic." Diane laughed.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Glinn Pakar hung back, watching the two old friends interact. They were members of his new unit, even though they weren't members of the 20th Order. It was the most diverse unit he'd served with, to be sure. Humans. Trill. Bajorans. And other races. Nothing in nearly two decades of service for Cardassia prepared him for this.  
  
He remembered Lieutenant Puckett as the team leader of an eight man Starfleet Special Forces team that destroyed a ketracel white facility in the Benzar sector, forcing the Jem'Hadar offensive into the neighboring system to be delayed indefinitely because of rationing of their drug. The Vorta field supervisors and Jem'Hadar Firsts were having a bad enough time trying to keep their troops under control in normal garrison duty. They'd be a liability in an offensive action.  
  
Three of the Starfleet raiders were killed and five, including Puckett, were captured. Before the death or capture of the eight man raiding unit, approximately 276 Cardassian and Jem'Hadar soldiers were killed and another 300 seriously wounded, including Pakar's eldest son.  
  
Pakar was a man with a large family, a wife, six children, his elderly parents and grandfather. His two oldest sons were killed in the Dominion War. His wife killed herself after her youngest son had been killed by the Klingons two months later. His four daughters, and his aged parents had died in their home in Lakarian City when the Dominion destroyed it. His grandfather died of a broken heart, to see an entire generation of his family gone.  
  
When he had interrogated Puckett, he had personal reasons for wanting to break the man. But Puckett was strong, he resisted and in fact was one of a handful of Starfleet POWs to have escaped Dominion custody. But the new piece of interrogation technology, the memory extraction unit, left its marks.  
  
What it was designed to do was to first sedate a prisoner and then using his memories, create a situation that would break down his defenses. In Rusty's case it had involved the woman he was speaking to.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
After the social gathering in the wardroom Rusty had gone to bed. Two hours later he woke with a cold sweat. Memories of Benzar came unbidden to his mind. Memories when he was a prisoner for six weeks before he escaped and the Benzite Resistance smuggled him back to Federation territory.  
  
"Calm down, it was just a false memory." Puckett said to himself, thinking 'But that doesn't make it any less real.'  
  
"It wasn't Diane you saw being tortured and executed before your eyes." Rusty said. Indeed the memory felt so real, even if it wasn't true. The experimental Cardassian memory extraction unit was not only effective in taking memories from a prisoner, it also helped to break a prisoner's resistance by implanting memories, false and tragic memories.  
  
Rusty realized that sleep wasn't going to be any benefit to him right now. Trying to do it wouldn't work. Seeing Diane again was a bittersweet thing. But as he slept he saw her being kicked and beaten by two Cardassian guards. Then he watched, helpless behind a force field as they ravaged her and finally a Jem'Hadar guard put her out of her misery.  
  
"Quit being a damned coward, Puckett." Rusty said to himself, "The memory isn't real. Diane lives on the same level and a third of the habitat ring away."  
  
'But that doesn't make the dreams go away. Or the very real fear you have of losing Diane again, and for real this time.' Puckett thought, 'If our resident Cardie shows any sign of being treacherous, I'll kill the bastard myself.'  
  
With that realization, Rusty Puckett went back to his bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
TBC 


End file.
